Family...Colour Blind

I want to talk about colour and more specifically being colour blind but not the eye condition. I was thinking a couple of weeks ago about the colour pink. Because Youngest One loves it especially Disney pink and I have been trying to avoid it. The irony is that in its deepest hues this is the colour I love best. I particularly love fuchsia pink and any dark shade of pink after that. Purple is a favourite especially as my birthstone is amethyst which was requested as part of my engagement ring. That amazing shade of red that is on those heels, again thanks to my lovely husband I have a pair of those. The rich yellow that signifies gorgeous butter and a lovely 50's style dress I have. Green grass colour followed by its vivid cousin bright luminescent green. Cobalt blue, the colour of the sea and a particularly lovely coat I have. Can you see where I am going yet?

Black was my go to colour for years including at weddings and I love its simplicity. I was a Goth for a while, best phase ever, but I wasn't like other goth girls. I didn't do pointy shoes, lacy dresses a la Stevie Nicks in her late Fleetwood Mac stage - we are talking late 80's/early 90's here. I did wear blood red lipstick, still a favourite and occasionally crimp and back comb my hair. I even had boyfriends who used to come to our house armed with crimpers and gin and tonic but that's another story. I wore doc marten boots, chains around them, fingerless gloves with more chains, always trousers and tops in dark hues of black, purple, red. I had an amazing satin coat that had gold striped lining and bright rainbow coloured glasses. This was my Dad's favourite phase of my late teenage years. I had my hair in all colours too. 

Obviously time marched on and the phases changed, there was the floral ironic Smiths phase after they had split up and Morrissey releasing his first debut album. The girl in Every Day is Like Sunday could have been me! The athletic California phase with button fly jeans and high tops. The hippy phase with nefarious goings on at Glastonbry Tor. The working in Libertys phase coincided with Mature Student phase at 21. Then proper work phase. This often involved trying to work out what to wear whilst looking different and barely succeeding. I was quite subversive by having piercings in odd places - which doesn't seem so subversive now. I was desperate to break out but in the staid business world I worked in that wasn't the done thing. I got into burlesque at this time and have a few corsets to prove it. The phases that kept coming back; Surfer Girl, Goth, Snowboard Lady and what I like to call the Magpie phase. Then came the Stay at Home Wiping phase which involved not much sartorial splendour. I am still in this phase though I am re-emerging hence the pink hair. I'll mix colours or not. I'll wear three different colours with an additional colour in my hat. I want purple hair next and I'll  probably get shit for it. The funny looks, the fake "love your hair", "aren't you adventurous". This long lesson in my colour choices leads me to this. 

I am teaching my kids the meaning of being colour blind and not being a sheep where you can. Obviously the one we want to teach them is to be colour blind towards others, people are people no matter creed, colour, sexuality and all manner of life choices. When we had Oldest One I couldn't believe that clothing and shoe choices for boys were limited to blue, blue, blue, khaki, more blue and occasionally red. I adored H&M for their funky brightly coloured kids clothes and looked out for bold colours. I still can't stand the blandness of boys shoes and clothes. Where were the bright boots and shoes for them? Similarly since having had Youngest One the huge range of pink tones and cream - ghastly colour for kids clothes - makes me shudder. I sought out the brights, stayed away from the branded clothes, kept some of Oldest Ones clothes and dressed her in them. She rocks stompy doc marten boots, leggings, skirt, frozen tshirt and multi coloured tops just as Oldest One rocks stompy boots, long shorts, bright tops and hoodies. Both of my kids love colour, Youngest One tells everyone I have pink hair, Oldest One often chooses my hair colour!

I am acutely aware of the difference in toy stores of boys and girls segregated toys and wish that manufacturers would sort this out. I don't like the new girls lego not because it's disney etc but because I don't like the figures they use, why change the original? Why make bows and arrows in pink when in the woods you'd be picked off quicker than a deer as there'd be no hiding you. I want my kids to be who they are even if I don't like the disney princess pink or yucky blue. Because this isn't about me. Oldest One has been out in gold sequins and a Spider-Man mask. The clearly odd looks from adults riled me until we walked past a group of teenage skateboarders. I was ready to defend at all costs. Then they turned round en masse and said "Wow look, Spider-Man in sequins. Cool." I could have kissed them all. So here comes the crux of all this. 

Forgetful parent that I am, I kept forgetting to buy new swimming goggles. Today I finally rushed to that well known orange supermarket who found me the only pair of googles for about £2. Speedo ones too. The joy. They are bright yellow and purple. "Bollocks to it, they'll do" I thought even though I had a slight doubt mostly because I wasn't sure if he'd like the colours.

Swimming seems to go fine. Goggle success. Home time looms. Oldest One in a foul mood. He's had a shite day. Finally he tells me that some kids in his class have been calling him names because of the goggles. "You're a girl", "those goggles belong to girls", "you look like a girl" blah blah blah. He was feeling awful and really upset as these were fricking cool goggles. Guess who this name calling came from? Girls that's who. Bloody bitchy girls. It could have so easily been boys that did this which sadly I would have expected but girls! Really? On top of all this Oldest One has been coming home from school lately saying such and such is "too girlish" and "only boys can do that" so that I have had to remind him that his mum and sister are girls and there is nothing that we can't do or wear or be. I was fuming when I heard about this crap from his class mates. Sure kids can be mean and that sucks. But so young? And about colour too?

Since when did colour really belong to just one sex? What about the colour festivals across the world?What about artists who use all manner of colour? The snowboarders, surfers and skateboarders who wear lots of colour, his mum who has pink hair? Rainbows? The ocean? The countryside? Birds? Those shoes? Books? Shall I go on? Super heroes and Disney films are full of colour. The technicolor wonder if the Wizaed of Oz........Lets stop with this colour assignment to the sexes and let our kids love colour in all its shades.  As parents we need to help them see that boys and girls can be anything they want to be and colour is amazing. I have been as guilty as the next parent in my quest for righteous colour love in ignoring the colours they love. I have been colour-ist. This stops now. In our house any colour goes. 

As the responsible parent I am (!) we went over a few answers he could give in the future to the mean kids which mainly amounted to Fuck Off in 6 year old language and went on in our merry colourful way. My son loves his goggles and they are here to stay. 

Life - recovery, recycling and washing

Why is the weekend always over in a flash and why does it always mean more work on a Monday. I feel like a laundry service today. I do try to be as "Green" as possible, from recycling to within an inch of our lives and we don't have a car so we walk everywhere. But when it comes to washing clothes and drying them I seem to fall down. Is there an etiquette to washing lines? Not that we have one, we have one of those clothes horses so when the weather is good it goes outside but I use the same principles as I would a washing line. I confess here and now I am a washing line snob (see below). This only applies of course to those clothes that actually get hung outside. These principles also extend to my airing cupboard. Especially if you know that you have people coming over. It's the "'good' clothes that get hung out to dry. The rest gets shoved in the tumble dryer or stuffed on the clothes horse in our bathroom. This only works if you have spare toilet which guests can use. It's kind of like showing the world that you do actually do something other than looking for shoes on the internet or eating biscuits and horror of horrors any traces of your family personality. But really you're only kidding yourself. So to the principles of Washing Line Etiquette.

1. Only put out clothes or bedsheets/pillow cases that look nice - when you look out of the window do you want to see skanky looking clothes or imagine that you are in rural idyll with sparkling sheets and clothes wafting gently in the wind?

2. Always put towels in the tumble dryer - nothing worse than a mildew towel and have you noticed that if you do air dry towels that when they get wet they smell of mildew and so do you. Nothing like eau d'mildewy for that sexy wanton smell for you and your other half.

3. Baby clothes and kids clothes other than underwear and socks (underwear see below and socks take up precious space on a clothes horse) generally do well hung out to dry. Mostly and especially with baby clothes they don't shrink so much.

3. NEVER EVER under any circumstances put underwear on your line - if I put mine on it would help the whole washing line take off as the wind caught hold of my bloomers - no embarrassing Bridgets on our washing line. Besides which, other than attracting the attention of the local peepers, is your underwear really worthy of hanging outside? And if it is are you really trying too hard to tell people that you have a fabulous figure, a fabulous sex life and are in fact all round fabulous. Or do I just sound just a teeny weeny incy wincy bit jealous or just practical. I'll advertise my wares to my husband and my husband alone. Thank you very much.

Oh my god I have turned into a closet prude. Next I'll be marching with a home made placard outside underwear shops and large adverts saying NO to frilly lacy underwear I have no hope in wearing and looking good in. Perhaps I should hang out my best knickers and actually feel good about seeing them flutter in the wind. Or perhaps not. My best ones are in fact The Bridgets. Ladies of a certain age will know what I am talking about.

Do comedy pyjama trousers qualify as not embarrassing clothing to put out and dry?

So in light of my apparent "Green-ness", I think that I emit a low carbon footprint as that smug feel good factor of air drying your laundry by Mother Nature herself cancels out my tumble dryer obsessive thing. Does that mean we have zero carbon footprint? However I am definitely not one of those Mums who finds total pride in being able to hang out her washing come rain or shine. And I absolutely am not aggrieved or feel my day is wasted if those sheets don't get hung out. I don't even have a wash day, every day is a wash day in my house. I even lie about it sometimes to my husband and tell him I haven't set that washing machine and tumble dryer going. But when you have a refluxy baby and a 4 year old you do end up washing. A lot.

Along those lines I had considered real nappies until I realised that we would definitely be needing to use a tumble dryer to dry all those nappies or employ one of those nappy washing services so the carbon footprint would be huge. So where possible we use environmentally friendly nappies. Doesn't always work and we don't always remember hence why we try so hard in other areas.

I also realised this morning that I have a plastic bag etiquette as well. I only keep the good ones even if they're used for rubbish bins in the bathroom. I am a closet recycling bag snob. What is going on............

Best get the farmers market food out and make a delicious and healthy lunch for my son and myself or better yet grab the peanuts and scoff the lot!